Hello,
“Do they teach you in school (college) not to say, “ I am
sorry,”?”
I asked this question of my business degree college grad son
a while ago. The reason I asked
this of him was two-fold. One
reason was that there was a law going through the Pennsylvania legislature that
would allow a doctor to say to a patient, “I am sorry,” and not be held liable
for saying so in a subsequent court case.
The second reason was that this proposed law had perked my ears to
listening for the words, “I am sorry,” and I have to say I wasn’t hearing it
very much.
“Yeah, Dad,” my son said, “we are told not to say, “I am
sorry,” because people don’t want to hear that. What they want to hear is, “I will make it right.” “Sorry” is a sign of weakness, and
that’s not a good impression to give.” (My paraphrase of his response.)
As I think about it, “I am sorry,” was already making its
way onto the endangered speech list even when I was a kid. A very popular book and movie, Love
Story, had as it’s central line, “Love means never having to say, “I am
sorry.”” (Really?) So, now some 40
years later, I guess that I should not be surprised to find, “I am sorry,”
moving its way toward extinction.
I can’t say that I have any science to confirm this, but it
seems quite clear to me that the progressive disappearance of, “I am sorry,”
has led to a climate change, a global cooling of warm relationships between
people. Married couples who do not
say, “I am sorry,” find themselves stuck in a trap of who is right and who is
wrong, and they never deal with the thing which has brought pain between
them. Friends and neighbors who do
not say, “I am sorry,” find themselves having less and less to say to each
other and eventually they say nothing.
Family members who do not say, “I am sorry,” get gripped by grudges and
the day soon comes that though their last names match, they deny it has any
claim of association. When people
no longer say, “I am sorry,” a cold wind of fear, pride and arrogance is
stirred up, and there is a climate change.
So, is there any hope for this climate change that we are
facing? I believe that there is,
and this is it: Lent. The 40 days
of Lent have been observed by generations and generations of Christians to take
a look at their lives in light of the life of Jesus….Jesus who so loved and
cared for everyone, even the ones who everyone else cared nothing for, that he
held nothing back, giving himself completely and fully, not turning away from
the humiliation, the suffering, and death that lay in front of him…and when a
person has spent 40 days bathing in the grace of God, like a knee hit with a
doctor’s reflex hammer, the words, “I am sorry,” cannot be held back. “I am sorry for the way I have treated
you, Jesus. I am sorry for the way
that I have treated others.”
Of course, the risk in saying, “I am sorry,” is the response
of the one to whom one has said those words. If that one says, “Sorry isn’t good enough,” and slams the
door in your face…well, that would lead to deadly disappointment. Sorrowful and rejected.
When we come to Jesus with the words, “I am sorry,” we do
not need to fear the response, because Jesus has already spoken his response to
us before we even take the breath in to say our words. And his word is, “I forgive you. I love you.”…that is what the Good
Friday cross that concludes the 40 days of Lent is all about.
Love and life blossom from the words, “I am sorry.” They blossom in a deep and abiding
relationship with God, a relationship that gives us the courage and power to
risk saying, “I am sorry,” to the people around you and me.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace,
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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